Monday, September 5, 2016

Rosemary and Rue: Book One of Toby Daye (October Daye Series 1)by Seanan McGuireSeptember 1, 2009Publisher: DAW368 pagesThe world of Faerie never disappeared; it merely went into hiding, continuing to exist parallel to our own. Secrecy is the key to Faerie's survival—but no secret can be kept forever, and when the fae and mortal worlds collide, changelings are born.

Outsiders from birth, these half-human, half-fae children spend their lives fighting for the respect of their immortal relations. Or, in the case of October "Toby" Daye, rejecting it completely. After getting burned by both sides of her heritage, Toby has denied the fae world, retreating into a “normal” life. Unfortunately for her, Faerie has other ideas...

The murder of Countess Evening Winterrose, one of the secret regents of the San Francisco Bay Area, pulls Toby back into the fae world. Unable to resist Evening’s dying curse, Toby must resume her former position as knight errant to the Duke of Shadowed Hills and begin renewing old alliances that may prove her only hope of solving the mystery...before the curse catches up with her.

October Daye (Toby) is a changeling - a half Dioine Sidhe and half human, with fairly weak powers inherited from her mother's powerful line, but diluted by her mortal father’s human side. She has built a good life for herself in the mortal realm, living with a human, Cliff, and her little girl, Gilly, doing PI work for both the regular people and fey. When her liege lord, Sylvester Torquill’s wife and daughter suddenly disappear, she is on the case. But she gets caught and is turned into a fish in a pond. The spell holds her prisoner for 14 years and when she awakens and suddenly transforms back to her changeling body, she finds that the world has moved on, that neither Cliff nor Gilly wants nothing to do with her thinking she was dead or had ran away for all those years. Not able to fully deal with what happened – she shuts herself off from everything and everyone. Then Countess Evening Winterrose is murdered, a dying curse put on Toby from the countess, and she is forced to resume her old life as knight errant to solve the murder.

I read this book some time ago and remember enjoying it, but I never picked up the rest of the series when they came out. Rereading this to review brought back to me why I enjoyed it. October’s voice is one of the reasons—she sounds like a P.I. and being a woman doesn't stop her from getting her hands dirty, also strong woman who still shows the readers the pain she feels and even weaknesses. The other characters are just as enjoyable, descriptions do make me see October’s mashed up world of a fae and human San Francisco, and she keeps me hooked from the first line, for a second time. Seanan McGuire brings us the promise that Laurell K. Hamilton began in her first Anita Blake books in this superb blend of urban fantasy and mystery.

Seanan McGuire is a California-based author with a strong penchant for travel and can regularly be found just about any place capable of supporting human life (as well as a few places that probably aren't). Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer; Rosemary and Rue, was named one of the Top 20 Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the Past Decade; and her novel Feed, written under the name Mira Grant, was named as one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2010. She also won a Hugo for her podcast, and is the first person to be nominated for five Hugo Awards in a single year.